Case against Bengali poet for writing poem against Yogi Adityanath on Facebook

A Bengali poet has landed himself in trouble after a Hindutava group lodged a complaint against him for allegedly hurting the sentiments of Hindus.

The poet, identified as Srijato Bandyopadhyay, had posted a 12-line poem on his Facebook page on March 19, the day Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Yogi Adityanath was sworn as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

Arnab Sarkar, a resident of Kolkata, filed a complaint against Bandyopadhyay and accused him of hurting the sentiments of Hindus by using distasteful words in his poem.

“He has hurt the feelings of each and every Hindu through the use of distasteful words against the community. I have strong reservations about the last line of the poem where he makes derogatory remarks about trishul and Yogi Adityanath,” he reportedly said.

Notably, Sarkar is a member of ‘Hindu Samhati’. Reacting to the police complaint, Bandyopadhyay has said that it is really sad that in a country like India, the right to freedom of speech and expression is shrinking fast.

Tapan Ghosh, President of Hindu Samhati, said that the poem was written on the basis of false information and if the police failed to take action they would move court.

The poem titled “Abhisaap” (curse) makes comments on Yogi Adityanath’s appointment as the UP chief minister and refers to the “raping Muslim women” comment. The poet also comments, with every election we go back by a decade and that every “disease must be cured”.

Meanwhile, a 25-year-old man was arrested in Ghazipur for uploading an “objectionable” picture of Yogi Adityanath, hours after he was sworn in as the UP chief minister, on a fake Facebook account.